Do statins increase the level of vitamin D in the blood in the short term?

Question: Is this a direct effect, or is it due to statins reducing cholesterol, which is needed to produce vitamin D from the skin, but cholesterol is not needed if the vitamin D is taken as a supplement

Some people appear to think that vitamin D could serve the same function as statins at much lower cost and much lower risk

Note: one statin is the top selling US prescription drug - with more sales than the next two top-selling drugs

New York Times Article March 2012
About 1 in 200 on statins get diabetes
about 4 in 200 on statins do not get heart attack (if not had one before)
with 200 million taking statins in the US this amounts to 200,000 more people getting diabetes

New statin guidelines: Everyone 40 and older should be considered for the drug therapy Nov 2016
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force as reported by Washington Post
"The new guidelines, published in JAMA, suggests that people ages 40 to 75 who have one or more risk factors — such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes or smoking that put them at a 10 percent or greater risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years — should be on statins"

Enhancement of vitamin D levels by statins Endocine conference June 2013
Patients who were taking statins were significantly more likely to have vitamin D levels at or above 30ng/ml (X2=5.5, p=0.02) than patients not on a statin

Statins & Muscle Pain Dean - April, 2016
Comment on Medscape article on Statins
75% of those over 50 years old will be on statins!
10–20% have reported muscle-related side effects – pain and/or weakness
She recommends Magnesium

See also Vitamin D Council behind a paywall

Did you know: Statins raise vitamin D levels . .market for statins nearly tripled when the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) revised its guidelines to recommend statins as primary prevention.Lancet had an article about the recommendation: Are lipid-lowering guidelines evidence-based?” Lancet 369 (9557)
8 of the 9 doctors on the NCEP panel were discovered to have been paid by statin manufacturers7 out of 8 studies later found that Statins raised levels of vitamin D

Benefits of Chocolate on the heart and all cause mortality (vs statins) - 2012

If you’re going to tell a healthy person to take a medicine every day for the rest of their life, you should have really good data that it’s going to make them better off,

statins didn’t prevent healthy women from having their first heart attacks and didn’t save lives.

Women who are healthy derive no benefit from statins, and even those women who have established heart disease derive only half the benefit men do.

The drugs have long been known to cause muscle pain in some people and, more rarely, liver and kidney damage, as well as cognitive side effects like memory loss and confusion

postmenopausal women who took part in the Women’s Health Initiative were much more likely to develop diabetes if they took statins, and diabetes itself increases the risk of heart disease considerably.

Summary by VitaminDWiki: No proof that statins helps healthy women, but there is proof that statins harms them

The JUPITER trial of Crestor vs placebo resulted in increased fatal heart attacks in the treatment group which were obscured by combing fatal and nonfatal infarctions.

The HPS study has 26% drop out rate prior to the beginning of the trial, so that those with significant side effects were functionally excluded from the study.

In at least four trials, statistically significant increases in cancer incidence was found, and handily dismissed by all authors as insignificant because they claimed "no known potential biological basis" is known.

A low serum cholesterol level has also been found to serve as a biological marker of major depression and suicidal behavior,
suicidal ideation among adults with mood disorders was more than 2.5-times greater in those taking statins

"So, the next time you hear of a doctor recommending a cholesterol-lowering intervention, tell him you'll take that 1% risk and spare yourself cancer, cognitive dysfunction, myopathy, and diabetes"

ConsumerLabs has a nice summary of this as well as many other vitamin D studies behind a subscription paywall
Their paywall is very much worth the price. They review a huge number of supplements
I have subscribed for over a decade

80% of the people who should take statins have decided not to (TOO many side effects?) - 2015

Statins associated with low vitamin D - Dec 2015

Background: Statins are well-known drugs used in dyslipidemia and cardiac disorders since several years. Recently, it has been reported that long-term use of statins reduce serum vitamin D level. When statins are administered to patients with low vitamin D more muscular side effects have been reported. On the contrary, a few studies report that statins might increase vitamin D level competing with its metabolism. Hence, this study was conducted to evaluate the association between statins and vitamin D.

Methods: 125 participants who fulfilled the selection criteria were enrolled in the study. 65 subjects belonged to control group and 60, statin group. The blood sample was collected for Vitamin D estimation. The results were correlated with a demographic profile, nature of statin and the muscular side effects and compared with control group.

Results: The mean vitamin D level in statin group was 15.82 ng/ml±11.51 and 20.57 ng/ml±7.007 in the control group. The difference was found to be statistically significant. 13.85% in the control group and 10% in statin group had sufficient vitamin D level. 18.33% and 36.92 % had insufficient levels and 71.67% and 49.23% had a deficiency in the statin and control groups respectively. Myalgia was reported by 30 among 60 subjects (50%) in statin group and 5 among 65 subjects (7.69%) in the control group.

Conclusion: The present study has shown that statin therapy is associated with low vitamin D level and that this could contribute to the increased incidence of myalgia in the statin group.

In the 22 patients with follow-up at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months on mean and median 70,000 and 75,000 IU of D3/week, median serum vitamin D rose from 20 to 37, to 41, to 44, and to 43 ng/ml (p<0.0001), with 1 (5%, 102 ng/ml) high, 2 (9%, 140, 140) high, 0 (0%) high, and 1 (5%, 126 ng/ml) high. Serum calcium was unchanged, median at entry 9.6, and then at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months 9.7, 9.7, 9.5, and 9.7 mg/ml. At entry serum calcium was normal in 21, none high, and one became high at 12 month follow-up. The trend of change in eGFR was insignificant, McNemar S=1.0, p=0.32.

When serum D rose above 100 ng/ml in the few cases, as above, it fell into the normal range within 2 weeks by reducing the vitamin D dose by 50%.

Conclusions When 50,000–100,000 units of vitamin D/week are given to reverse statin intolerance in statin intolerant patients with low entry vitamin D (<32 ng/ml), it appears to be safe over up to 1 year follow-up, without toxic high serum vitamin D levels >150 ng/ml, and levels rarely >100 ng/ml, and without changes in serum calcium or eGFR.
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A study has the same conclusion later in 2016Rechallenging Statin Therapy in Veterans With Statin-Induced Myopathy Post Vitamin D Replenishment41% tolerated their previously failed statins after taking vitamin D; free PDF is online

Statins for Primary Prevention - The Debate Is Intense, but the Data Are Weak"The evidence for treating asymptomatic persons with statins does not appear to merit a grade B or even a grade C recommendation.”
“Benefits of any preventive therapy accrue according to risk of disease (greater benefit in higher-risk patients), the harms of therapy usually distribute equally overall risk levels. Thus, persons at low risk have little chance of benefit but equal chance of harms and thus are more likely to have a net harm.”
“Other studies have estimated that closer to 20% of statin users have muscle problems.”
“The decision aid [available from the Mayo Clinic website] shows that of 100 people who take a statin for 5 years, only 2 of 100 will avoid a myocardial infarction, and 98 of the 100 will not experience any benefit.”
“At the same time, 5 to 20 of the 100 will experience muscle aches, weakness, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and increased risk of diabetes.”
“The rate of statin use for primary prevention among persons older than 79 years had increased from 8.8% in 2000 to 34.1% in 2012.”
The number needed to treat is 244 for the target group and is much worse for younger, women, and elderly

Very small benefit to taking statins - and only to those who had heart problems - June 2017
"Soon after the height of the epidemic in 1970–1980, there was a reduction of deaths in those who received statins, in WOSCOPS from 4% deaths at five years in controls to 3% in those treated. This means that just one man in 100 without a history of CHD who took (prava)statin for five years did not die.

_Statins are of no value in the elderly - Blog post Sept 2017[http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2017/09/statins-are-of-no-value-in-elderly.html|Dr. Grimes blog post

Red yeast rice as good a statins (RCT May 2017) - without the side effects